MANA MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 October 2011

Mana calls for an end to 'Flag of Convenience' vessels on New Zealand coasts

Mana is calling for Government intervention and regulation of the coastal shipping industry to exclude Flag of Convenience registered vessels operating on the coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Mana spokesperson John Minto says the Rena disaster shows that ships registered in countries with lax employment and maritime safety laws should not be allowed to conduct coastal shipping in New Zealand.

"The Rena is registered in the West African capital-of-corruption Liberia to increase profits to the ship owners by avoiding New Zealand regulations.

"We have already seen how foreign owned and crewed fishing vessels operating in New Zealand ignore basic health, safety and employment laws and now the Rena disaster has brought the problems off the sea and, literally, onto the shores of Aotearoa.

"We support the campaign of the Maritime Union of New Zealand to reintroduce cabotage regulations to ensure ships undertaking coastal shipping are owned and crewed by residents of New Zealand.

"There would be much less likelihood of such a disaster with local owned and locally crewed ships with decent health and safety standards and decent rates of pay and employment conditions.”

Mr Minto said the Prime Minister's slow-motion handling of this crisis has created an unprecedented eco-catastrophe and now MANA supporters are on the coast of Tauranga to help with the clean up."

"It should never have come to this. Flag of Convenience vessels are disasters waiting to happen.

“Why do we have ships on our coasts that Maritime New Zealand inspections say do not have the proper charts for navigation? Because the National Government of the 1990s deregulated our coastal shipping and the Labour Government of the 2000s did not heed the advice of the Maritime Union, even after all the exposures of sweatshop work practices on these ships in our waters.

“Current Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood has told the media ‘Our view is that the unregulated nature of Flag of Convenience global shipping will be shown to be the underlying cause of what has happened. We have vessels on the New Zealand coast that are not up to scratch.’ Mana agrees.”

Mr Minto said MANA would make it a high priority to re-establish locally owned, locally crewed shipping in New Zealand waters, so an accident like the Rena has much less chance of happening in the future.

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